Getting to know you... all over again

I've mentioned how much easier things seem to be getting now that the girls are getting older. I suddenly feel as if I've come out of a fog and am really enjoying my time being a mom. That sounds awful, but I feel like I'm driving the car instead of going along for a crazy ride with no brakes.

The bad part about the past three years is that it hasn't left Bill or I much time to devote to one another. We both acknowledge that we sort of fell into "survival mode" after the girls were born. Our attention was directed solely at them, with any other leftover time and energy put into the basic necessities for ourselves (food, sleep, etc.) Now that the girls don't need so much of our attention, we have time for each other once again.

The problem is that it HAS been three or so years since we've been able to focus on each other. We've grown and changed interests a lot and haven't really updated each other. We finally realized this about ourselves last night when we exchanged Valentine's Day gifts.

This Christmas, Bill got shafted in the gifts department from me. I got him some things that he had seen and talked about in a store one day. What I didn't realize is that he was making fun of those things, and that what he really wanted wasn't like those at all. He was great about hiding his disappointment, but later I found out that he was completely puzzled by what I had given him.

Last night he gave me the biggest box of candy I've seen in ages. A gigantic box of Cherry Cordials that he apparently had to search for in many stores. Guess what? I hate Cherry Cordials. I had brought some home from a party a few months ago and he had assumed from that that I really liked them.

Bill's birthday is next week so sometimes Valentine's Day is lumped together with that. He loves Everclear and there's a concert here in town tomorrow night. He had mentioned it a few times, but I didn't pick up on any of the hints. Instead I got him something else for his birthday... something he probably won't end up liking after all. What would he have really liked? Tickets to the concert tomorrow night.

This all sounds petty and materialistic, but I used to be so good at gift giving. I was the person who could pick up on subtle clues and surprise someone with a gift. For the first 5 years of our relationship, I think I made Bill leap for joy or cry at least once every Christmas because of a gift I'd gotten him. And they were always surprises and always something that he loved. Now I can't even seem to pick the right thing when it's laid out in front of me.

The whole point, and one that we've now realized, is that we need to reconnect. This weekend without the girls is the perfect opportunity to start. Random passing in the night (him coming home from work while I leave for the spa) hasn't left much time to discover each of our new interests. I'm just glad we're realizing it now, only 3 years in, instead of when the girls go off to college. So many of my friends' parents split up when we graduated high school. It's as if they finally looked at each other after 18 years and said, Who are you? They had focused on the kids and hadn't connected at all or enough during that time. Hopefully we can avoid that... and hopefully I can become a better gift-giver as well.